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Deeplinks Blog

Deeplinks Blog

EFF responds to today's announcement by the RIAA that it will begin gathering evidence that will be used to sue individuals who use file-sharing software: "It's plain that the dinosaurs of the recording industry have completely lost touch with reality," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF senior staff attorney. "At...

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked a federal court to rule that people have the right to use technology to skip scenes or mute language they find disturbing while viewing movies they have obtained lawfully.
The case, entitled Huntsman v. Soderbergh, involves consumer use of software...

Senator Orrin Hatch proposed yesterday that entertainment companies be entitled to destroy people's computers after two warnings of copyright infringement, according to press reports. "This is an entirely unreasonable proposal, tantamount to a debt collector sending you two warnings that your car payment is late and then claiming that...

EFF is disappointed with Digital Networks North America's decision to disable the Commercial Advance and Send Show features in new model 5500 ReplayTVs. "This is yet another example of Hollywood dictating what technologies consumers can and can't use" said EFF Attorney Gwen Hinze. "Consumers are the real losers from Digital...

"RIAA's claim that it has an emergency need to violate the privacy of the two Verizon users is weak, especially since one of those users has already filed a declaration stating that he has disabled KaZaA entirely," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Once again, RIAA has shown that it...

EFF welcomes the Supreme Court's decision in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox, that the Lanham Act does not interfere with republication of uncopyrighted works. "The Supreme Court's unanimous decision recognized that the public should be free to reuse materials from the public domain," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer...

San Francisco - The California Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for May 29, 2003, on a key legal challenge to the publication of information regarding the decryption of DVDs. In the case, called DVD-CCA v. Bunner, California resident Andrew Bunner was one of thousands of republishers of the DVD-decryption...

"Governor Owens, in vetoing the Colorado super-DMCA bill, recognized that these bills are bad for innovation, bad for competition, and bad for consumers," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. "These MPAA-sponsored bills represent the worst kind of special interest legislation, sacrificing the public...

The Bush Administration released its long-awaited report to Congress on the "Total Information Awareness" program today. (Now renamed "Terrorism Information Awareness") "The report is disappointing -- after more than a hundred pages, you don't know anything more about whether TIA will work or whether your civil liberties will be...

Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California heard arguments in 321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer this morning on whether 321's DVD backup software violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "Fair use and the DMCA have been on a collision course since 1998," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy...

The Wall Street Journal reports that all four of the college students recently sued by the RIAA have settled their actions, agreeing to pay between $12,000 and $17,500 each without admitting any wrongdoing. The students allegedly maintained "index servers" that allowed students to search on-campus local area networks (LANs...

The D.C. District Court today ruled that alleged copyright infringers are to be deemed guilty until proven innocent. Judge Bates agreed with RIAA that copyright holders can issue subpoenas to ISPs to demand identifying information about any Internet users based upon a mere allegation of infringement, with no notice to...

EFF is concerned about Blackboard's use of legal threats and a temporary restraining order to block a reverse engineering discussion at the Interz0ne II conference this past weekend. We have been contacted in the matter. "Stopping speakers as they are preparing to give a scientific talk is a...

April 2003
Contact: Fred von Lohmann (415) 436-9333 x123 fred@eff.org A wide variety of technologies travel under the banner of "digital rights management" (DRM). In appropriate circumstances, these technologies can solve real problems for users, technology vendors, and content owners. Some, however, have made more ambitious claims for DRM, suggesting...